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Boosting the Buzz

Penn State continues to be a leader in the area of holistic pollinator health research through its work on the worldwide decline of the bee population, particularly honey bees.

Boosting the Buzz

Penn State's Center for Pollinator Research hosted the third International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health and Policy July 18-20, 2016, as part of collaborative efforts to combat the decline of bees.

Spring is a season of new growth, with buds on the trees, green grass, and flowers beginning to bloom. It’s also a prime time for pollinators such as honey bees, as they begin to feed off of the pollen from the newly blooming flora.

But recently, the bees have been creating a different kind of buzz. About ten years ago, beekeepers began to notice a significant decrease in the North American honey bee population—and that decrease can have big implications beyond your backyard.

“Three-fourths of our major food crops need pollination. Without the help of the honey bees and other pollinators, yield from those crops would be significantly reduced.”—Christina Grozinger

Honey bees are one of the most efficient pollinating species. Responsible for about 80 percent of insect pollination, the honey bee plays a critical role in food security and biodiversity.

“Three-fourths of our major food crops need pollination,” explains the College of Agricultural Sciences’ Christina Grozinger. “Without the help of the honey bees and other pollinators, yield from those crops would be significantly reduced.”

Grozinger, distinguished professor of entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research, has devoted much of her work over the past several years to identifying and mitigating the problems behind the honey bee population decrease.

Along with many colleagues across the college—and throughout the University—Penn State has become known as one of the top universities addressing holistic pollinator health.

Through continued research on diseases, diet, and nutrition, and the sometimes unintended effects of pesticides, Grozinger believes that we can begin to alleviate the problem of pollinator declines.

Collaboration

The scope of the pollinator crisis, coupled with a long-standing interest from members of the Penn State community to work on globally important problems, has attracted a diverse group of researchers and educators to bring their own unique perspectives to address these issues.

“In the beginning, there was a core group of people who worked on bees, but it wasn’t very many,” Grozinger says. “Then, because Penn State is a really collaborative place, so many others began to see ways they could apply their own research, extension, and outreach efforts to these issues.”

Sarah Shugrue, a master's student with Penn State’s Department of Entomology, collects pollen samples from an apple tree. Shugrue is studying the effects of landscape mitigation on pollinators, as well as the effects of pesticides on wild bees and the honey bee.

Image: L. Reidar Jensen

“Sustainability and conservation aren’t just things that happen in a nature reserve; they happen in our backyards.”—Christina Grozinger

Though there are no quick fixes for the issues impacting honey bees and other pollinators, Penn State researchers are well on their way to discovering new ways to alleviate those issues—which will have cascading benefits into other areas, like food production.

For example, one current research thrust focuses on landscape ecology and management. Researchers are working to understand the kinds of plants that bees prefer and how to design landscapes that will provide bees with their specific nutritional needs. Then, they hope to spread that knowledge to the general public.

“Sustainability and conservation aren’t just things that happen in a nature reserve; they happen in our backyards,” says Grozinger. “We really want to shift perceptions into new ways of thinking. People are really excited about that, and we just have to give them the tools to do it.”

A major theme of the conference was translating the results of recent research advances in the biology and health of pollinators into solutions that can be applied in the field to conserve and expand pollinator populations.

The conference covered a range of topics in pollinator research—from genomics to ecology—and their application to land use and management, breeding of managed bees, and monitoring of global pollinator populations. Sessions also highlighted recent global initiatives in policy, education and extension.

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College of Information Sciences and Technology doctoral student Jun Xu recently was named a recipient of the 2018 Penn State Alumni Association Dissertation Award and Distinguished Doctoral Scholar Medal. He is one of 14 University Park graduate students to receive the award, which is considered one of the most prestigious awards that a Penn State graduate student can receive.

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